Weam Namou's Blog

Interview with the co-producers of Marked: The Untold Story of Iraqi Christians

 

Co-producers Vanessa Denha-Garmo and Al Zara talk about making the documentary Marked: The Untold Story of Iraqi Christians

Interview with Rev. Kenneth Bunge, advisor to the Chaldean translation program

Reverend Kenneth Bunge was born in Monroe, Michigan and grew up there, graduating from Monroe High school in 1974. Later that year he began attending Concordia College in Ann Arbor, Michigan. By the end of the second year the College was accredited as a four-year school, and he remained there, earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1978, majoring in music. He stayed on one more year and took all language courses, finishing the program with a Major in Biblical Hebrew Studies in 1979. In the fall of that year, he spent two quarters at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. In the fall he switched gears and enlisted in the Air Force, serving as an Arabic and Hebrew linguist for twenty years.

Ken returned to Concordia Seminary in 2003, finished the program in 2006, and served as a pastor in Minnesota until 2009. That same year he joined Lutheran Bible Translators, taking the required coursework, and teaming up with Arabic Bible Translation in 2011 to help with the Chaldean translation program. He was with that project full-time until 2017. That year he accepted a call as pastor of First Lutheran Church in Lufkin, Texas. He remained project advisor to the Chaldean translation program, associated with Lutheran Bible Translators on a part time basis as he serves the Lufkin congregation full time.

Here is the link to Scripture Earth (scripture resources in thousands of languages) https://www.scriptureearth.org/00i-Scripture_Index.php Link to Chaldean (Neo-Aramaic) Syriac script https://www.scriptureearth.org/00i-Scripture_Index.php?sortby=lang&ISO_ROD_index=1165

Link to Chaldean (Neo-Aramaic) Arabic script https://www.scriptureearth.org/00i-Scripture_Index.php?sortby=lang&ISO_ROD_

index=395

Interview with Loolwa Khazzoom, Iraqi-Israeli-American singer and writer

Iraqi-Israeli-American singer Loolwa Khazzoom has had a meandering career as a musician, dancer, writer, educator, and more, all with the central organizing principle of individual and collective healing. She is the singer, songwriter, and bass player for the band Iraqis in Pajamas, which combines ancient Iraqi Jewish prayer with original alternative and punk rock.

Her music, writing, and other work has been featured in top media including The New York Times and Rolling Stone; she has performed and presented at leading venues including Harvard University and the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and she has published two books, taught throughout the Ivy League and at universities nationwide – The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage and Consequence: Beyond Resisting Rape. Khazzoom offers up her unique blend of ancient, sacred, and original music as the catalyst for deep healing and transformation, on the levels of heart, mind, soul, and body.

Interview with Ashtar Alkhirsan, award-winning filmmaker based in the U.K.

A graduate of the National Film and Television School, Ashtar began her career making arts documentaries for the BBC. Following the death of her father, she became interested in the experience of the generation Iraqi men and women who came to the UK in the 50s and 60s and who she think’s are part of a forgotten diaspora. She made my short film, Abdullah and Leilah, with this in mind. The lead was played by the iconic Iraqi actor Sami Abdul Hameed.

Ashtar is currently working on a documentary about the UK AIDS Quilt and a drama script which looks at the experience of an Iraqi family and their children when they seek refuge in the UK.

Interview with Bashar Hanna, music teacher and writer

Based in Australia, Bashar Hanna is the founder of several art-based therapy groups. He is a music teacher, writer, and columnist. In 2018, Bashar was awarded the community fellowship of Western Sydney University for his achievements in the community arts sector.

Interview with Heather Raffo, Iraqi American Playwright and Actress

Heather Raffo is an award-winning playwright and actress whose work has taken her from the Kennedy Center to the U.S. Islamic World Forum in Qatar, and from London’s House of Lords to classrooms nationally and internationally. Her work has been supported by the State Department, Doris Duke, Mellon and Annenberg Foundations and has been seen off Broadway, off West End in regional theater and in film.

An American with Iraqi roots, Raffo’s plays have been hailed by The New Yorker as “an example of how art can remake the world”. She is the author and performer of NOURA, hailed by Gloria Steinem as a truly feminist refugee narrative (Weissberger Award, Helen Hayes MacArthur award Best Original New Play) which premiered in D.C. before moving to Abu Dhabi, Cairo, NYC and theaters across the nation, and 9 Parts of Desire (Lucielle Lortel award, Blackburn commendation, Helen Hayes, Drama League and Outer Critics Circle nomination) which ran Off Broadway for nine months and has played across the U.S. and internationally for over a decade. 9 Parts of Desire was the first play in the English language to feature an Iraqi female protagonist and its commercial success helped birth a whole new genre of Middle Eastern American theater.

Raffo’s libretto for the opera FALLUJAH, the first opera about the Iraq war and the first to openly confront the alarming rates of veteran suicide, was part of Kennedy Center’s International Theater Festival, received its world premiere at Long Beach Opera and opened at New York City Opera in 2016. A film of the opera aired on PBS accompanied by a documentary titled Fallujah: Art, Healing and PTSD. Her new anthology, Heather Raffo’s Iraq Plays: The Things That Can’t Be Said, was just released in 2021 and brings together Raffo’s groundbreaking contribution not only to the American Theater but to a deeper national conversation, giving voice to nearly two decades of rarely examined traumas that have reshaped cultural and national identity for both Americans and Iraqis since the events of 9/11.

Check out her book here https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1350145173?pf_rd_r=400MY2CK2XS40G3J1396&pf_rd_p=5ae2c7f8-e0c6-4f35-9071-dc3240e894a8&pd_rd_r=66ab890d-1000-46f4-a90f-e8f488c9e65f&pd_rd_w=4DGOs&pd_rd_wg=PqUXP&ref_=pd_gw_unk

Interview with the filmmakers of “Saving the Iraqi Jewish Archives”

Carole Basri is a visiting professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law since 2011, and a visiting professor at Pericles Law School since 2014. At Fordham University Law School she was an adjunct professor from 2010 to 2018 and she started the Fordham Corporate Compliance Certificate Program in 2013 and she help create at Fordham Law School the first LLM in Corporate Compliance at a U.S. law school, which was launched in 2014 with ABA approval. Ms. Basri created the Corporate Lawyering Group LLC Corporate Compliance Certificate Program in São Paulo, Brazil, where the sixth workshop was held from April 1st to 6th, 2019. In 2003, Ms. Basri was a member of the US State Department’s “Future of Iraq” Project.

From July 2003 until July 2004, she was a member for the Coalition Provisional Authority, with the Iraqi Reconstruction Development Council (IRDC) for Ambassador Bremer in Baghdad. She worked extensively on doing business, anti-corruption, and transparency issues in Iraq. Ms. Basri is also a documentary film producer and her films have been shown at film festivals and PBS. She produced a documentary on hemophiliacs in Iraq who got AIDS through tainted blood parts. She has advised, on a pro bono basis, a preparatory PBS production of Saddam’s trial. She has been a commentator on the Iraqi elections and its constitution for MSNBC, CNN, FOX and Al Iraqiya TV.

Adriana Davis is a Filmmaker, Director, Producer, Editor, Writer, Voice-Over Artist & Coach, since 1991. She is the founder of D-Squared Media, a full-service production company based in New York City with corporate and film clients. Ms. Davis is the, co-director, producer, co-writer and editor of an acclaimed quartet of documentaries about Iraq’s Jewish community and history: The Life of Frankly Iny (1999), Searching for Baghdad (2002), The Last Jews of Baghdad (2005), and Saving the Iraqi Jewish Archives (2020).

The films have screened at over 80 premiere film festivals in the US, Canada, Israel and Europe and was featured on Jewish Life TV (JLTV) and PBS (MetroArts 13).In addition to documentaries, Ms. Davis has produced several narrative films and is currently in production on two new documentaries: A Grand Idea memorializes one man’s quest to mount a Broadway production of his own Yiddish version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance and What’s for Lunch, profiling the struggles of the NY City school lunch program. http://iraqijewisharchives.org/

Interview with Asmaa Jamil, author of the “Kingdom of Treasures” series

Originally from Northern Iraq, Asmaa Jamil was born into the Chaldean Christian ethnic group before moving to the United States, where she grew up. Leaving the corporate world not long ago to focus on her writing full time, Asmaa draws on her experiences living and working in several different counties to influence her creative process. While abroad, Asmaa learned about other cultures and their unique traditions, a key role in her development as a writer.

Asmaa Jamil holds a BS in Business from Oakland University, an MBA in International Business from Wayne State University, a PGCert in Management Information Systems from Oakland University, and an MLA in Near Eastern Languages from Wayne State University. She boasts over two decades of professional experience in retail and wholesale credit as well as entrepreneurship. During this time period, she has gained extensive cultural insights, working with diverse international teams in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. With expertise in strategic planning, forecasting, risk assessment, operations, business transformation and beyond, Asmaa is an expert in her industry.

Raised in a family of storytellers, Asmaa always felt inspired by the power of a narrative. Specifically, she found that family stories were the most captivating, as they speak to audiences of all ages with ease. Not to mention, Asmaa likes that family stories foster opportunities for household gatherings and traditions. Her first book, titled Magical Mountain from the Kingdom of Treasures series, explores influential female character roles.

Outside of writing, Asmaa Jamil enjoys reading history and visiting historical sites around the world. She also has a fascination for connecting the old with the new, demonstrated through her storytelling. When it comes down to it, Jamil is happy with a cup of coffee, great conversations with loved ones, and of course, good food.

Available at Amazon

Interview with Filmmakers Miguel Angel Soria and Peter Alkatib

Miguel-Angel Soria is the co-producer and editor of the award-winning feature length documentary, Chaldean Voices. He was born in Tijuana, Mexico and immigrated to San Diego, California. He is an Emmy-nominated producer (NATAS-PSW) and a founding member of the Taco Shop Poets, whose work was featured on both HBO and PBS. Currently, he is the Director of Educational Content Development for Lifelong Learning Administration Corporation, a national nonprofit educational services organization.

Peter Alkatib is a co-director and co-producer of the award-winning feature length documentary, Chaldean Voices. Peter was born in Baghdad, Iraq and immigrated to the United States at a young age with his family. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology from the University of California, San Diego and will earn a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Point Loma Nazarene University at the end of 2021. Peter is dedicated to the promotion and civic involvement of the Chaldean American community in San Diego, CA and, for nearly a decade, he has worked to provide socioeconomically disadvantaged youth and young adults equal opportunities for education and employment.

Chaldean Voices, the documentary – Over the past 10-15 years, thousands of Chaldeans have fled Iraq and the Middle East seeking refuge in the United States. Over the past 30 years, over 40,000 Chaldeans reside in the City of El Cajon. This local documentary chronicles the experience of several Chaldean high school students as they assimilate to life in the United States. Aired: 09/01/15

Interview with Amer Hanna Fatuhi, PhD, writer and visual artist

Amer Hanna Fatuhi, Ph.D., is a scholar in Mesopotamian History and Iraqi Minorities (Cross-cultural Communication & Ethno-religious affairs). He is also a professional writer and visual artist. He studied engineering, fine arts, and history. He also designed the Chaldean National Flag in 1985 and won the 1986-2008 international contests to design the Iraqi National Flag. For more information, visit http://www.ChaldeanLegacy.com http://www.Ea-ArtG.com